How to Do Hypnosis — Getting Started Right Without Wrong Assumptions

Before we get in to how to do hypnosis, let’s just take a moment to identify what hypnotism is not.

Hypnotic trance states can also be called being ‘under’. So being ‘under’ is not meditation, psychotherapy, relaxation or sleep. In the right hands Hypnotism is a very effective tool

Induced trance states versus meditation.

Your motivation for meditation is to focus on yourself. The motivation for a suggestible altered state is to focus on something outside yourself.

The goal of meditation is inner peace for most people and for some just a form of relaxation. But the goal of becoming hypnotized is to allow you to enjoy changing your behavior.

So what is the process for meditation? You enter an altered state, and then focus on yourself. Contrast that with the alternative and the process here is to enter an altered state of consciousness and then receive suggestions to change unwanted behaviors.

In meditation you achieve an altered state and pretty much stay there. Not so when you are under the influence of a hypnotist. During this opportunity you achieve an altered state, and then you’re able to work on yourself to change behaviors, ideas or thoughts to hopefully improve your life.

Being hypnotized is not psychotherapy, it’s only a therapy. Hypnotherapy on the other hand, is psychotherapy and the tool that’s used is hypnosis. This tool, in regards to hypnotherapy in psychotherapy is just one way to uncover things in your past that may be influencing your present.

Being ‘under’ is not relaxation, although during this special time you’ll feel very, very relaxed. In fact, most inductions revolve around full body relaxation techniques.

So let’s compare ‘being under’ to being asleep.

In sleep, our eyes are closed, while in an induced altered state the eyes may be closed or they can remain open. During sleep the body always appears relaxed but when you’re ‘under’ the body can be instructed to become very tense and not relaxed at all.

Sleep lets us block out all the surrounding environment and an hypnotic trance allows this as well with the exception of the hypnotist’s voice.

Moving around in bed, while you’re asleep is pretty common. People that are ‘under’ generally remain perfectly still because it’s too much effort to move unless they’re instructed to do otherwise.

Your ability to concentrate while you’re asleep is a big zero. Your ability to concentrate while ‘under’ is phenomenal and nearly limitless.

Actual EEG studies of sleep and a true trance show the trance causes high alpha activity indicating alertness while sleeping subjects show very little alpha activity indicating nobody’s home.

As a person goes to sleep it’s said they drift off. Drifting off is exactly what happens, the mind truly just drifts away into sleep. Being ‘under’ is way more interesting. When you are hypnotized you are fully alert and totally interested in the mental experience that’s unfolding before you.

Avoiding these wrong assumptions is key in your study on how to do hypnosis.